Many of us don’t realize the dominant side of our body at work during the swing, chip, putt etc.. and this could be why you keep chunking your chip shots.
For a right side dominant player, the right hand will always tend to dominate the left.
This generally leads to the club head bottoming out too early, meaning the low point occurs behind the ball. This then means that the club head is ascending (traveling upwards) at impact. Instead of slightly descending at impact.
This is a very common issue, and it flows all the way through to a full swing. At impact, whether you’re chipping, pitching or swinging full, the left wrist/hand should be relatively flat at impact.
When there’s too much right hand action through impact, this critical impact alignment doesn’t happen. The left wrist tends to be bent and the right wrist tends to be bowed. This is opposite to what we want.
We always want a flat left wrist, and a bent right wrist at impact. More so during a golf swing as opposed to a chip shot. But flicking the clubhead at the ball and allowing the clubhead to outrace the hands too early is a common issue I see again and again.
There’s also the topic of using the bounce on the wedge, and allowing the clubhead to sweep and brush the ground. Much of that has to do with ball position and shaft angle – but I’ll leave that for another time.
What I’m giving you here is a fix for a common issue I see many amateurs make around the green.
Try practicing with your least dominant hand once in a while around the chipping green. This will help educate that side of the body in its role and build up the correct feelings for when the dominant hand is placed back on the club.
This will help you stop chunking your chip shots.
I have been playing for twenty years, am right handed, shoot hockey left handed, have just recently figured out that my left hand has been the driving force in my chipping and pitching, I have always struggled, either sculling my pitches and chips, or sticking the club in the ground behind the ball, now I use my right hand and have much better contact and trajectory, allowing my left hand to stay out front, not collapsing, but applying the power with my right hand/arm. Good article.
Thanks for the comment Kevin.